


Collapsing Star with Tunnel Vision (but only for you)

by QueenieRose53001



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Necromancy, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, Sibling Love, barry has a denim scythe fight me, but like the cloning tank kind of necromancy, lup gets her body back, no one else is dying here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 01:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16567418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenieRose53001/pseuds/QueenieRose53001
Summary: Lup gets her body back and kisses her boy.





	Collapsing Star with Tunnel Vision (but only for you)

**Author's Note:**

> part two of my friend's eighteenth birthday present, literally a month later.
> 
> title from The Last of the Real Ones
> 
> R, if I find out that you read this before finishing story and song I am going to fight you. <3

Lup Taaco had been waiting for this moment for the longest twelve years of her life. Her spectral form shuddered and shook as Barry adjusted a knob on the tank. Her body was ready. They were in Barry’s old hideout, at the foothills near Wave Echo Cave. To think he’d been so close this entire time. She giggled at the thought, ignoring all of their regrets.

“I’ve got a robe ready for you,” Barry said, holding the crimson garment up. It had been one of his own, but he was ready to give it up for her. “Just letting you know, it feels super weird. Getting back into a body, I mean.”

“Like you’d know how this feels, babe. How many times did you kick it since I left?” Lup smiled teasingly. Her teeth were visible underneath her shifting form, sharp and pointed. 

“Eight or nine, I figure,” he shrugged, a deep pink blush covering his face. “I never kept track. If you really wanted to know, go ask your future brother in law. He’s definitely kept track.”

If anything, Barry was just as excited as Lup was. She had been gone for over a decade. Even contrasted to their undead life spans, the time was more significant for him. Elves could live for nearly a thousand years. Barry would have been lucky if he hit one hundred. He wanted to hold her so badly.

Lup wanted to hold him too. Even though she was long freed from the Umbra-Staff, she still felt so isolated from everyone. No one could touch her. Lup knew that they all wanted to, even Lucretia, who felt so guilty about this whole ordeal that she needed Lup’s hug.

Barry let out a breath through his nose and swallowed hard, turning away from the tank and facing Lup where she floated behind him. “Whenever you’re ready, Lup.”

She grinned again, and she floated into the tank. “I’m gonna miss the whole levitating thing. Oh, and the infinite spell slot thing. I’m definitely going to miss that.”

Barry chuckled, propping himself up on his table, emptied of its normal contents. Her voice was muffled by the thick fluid that surrounded her body, but he could hear her sarcastic lamenting clear as day. He had missed Lup’s voice. 

As Lup settled into her body, the two liches both fell silent. Lup watched Barry’s eyes as her spectral form’s vision faded to black. He looked amazed as he watched the tank work from the outside, after a decade of only using it on himself. 

Then the membranes that held the fluid in the tank exploded, sending the green liquid splattering around the parts of the cavern that Barry hadn’t shielded with a cantrip. Other than himself, he only protected a small wooden chest, filled to the brim with letters and spare clothes, maps with black circles inked in and triangulated, a book of necrotic charts scribbled in her handwriting, their history. 

And there was Lup. She stumbled out of the remains of the tank, naked as the day she was born. This wasn’t quite the right body, not the one that she and Taako had put so much work into before she and Barry had even met.

Her undercut had vanished, her hair long and dark, just like the way it regenerated each cycle.  All of her piercings were gone, every single piece of gold and silver jewelry gone to time. All the important ones were still tucked away in their rooms on the moon base, anyways. 

Even though the Starblaster had been lost during the last stand against the Hunger, the birds had all taken most of their belongings off of their home when the relics proved effective. When Lup went missing, and when Barry couldn’t remember, Lucretia had taken their things and put them in her locked office, to a room just beyond Junior’s tank. Even if Lucretia hadn’t always had the best ideas, they were still going to be grateful for most of their little sister’s actions. 

Barry couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. He knew that this wasn’t the way she wanted anyone to see her, but he also knew that she trusted him more than anyone else she had ever met (with the exception of her brother, but Barry would never stand a chance against Taako). He stared at her, mouth hanging open slightly and his face going as red as the clothes he held in his hands. 

He cursed himself quietly as he snapped out of his reverie and draped the red robe over her form. Lup shuddered as he accidentally brushed his hand over her bare skin. Every nerve seemed like it was dialed up to seventeen, and his hand felt like fire and ice. 

She stared at him, refreshing herself on what her heartbeat felt like, reminding her lungs to breathe in, breathe out, repeat. Lup couldn’t bring herself to speak, and thankfully, Barry didn’t say anything either. She gripped at his forearms, her knees wobbling, her fingers digging into his skin through his white shirt. 

“Man, I forgot how good I look,” She grinned, her elven teeth just as sharp as her lich form’s. Barry smiled back at her, laughter and tears bubbling in his chest. “I forgot how good you look, Bear,” she whispered, more solemnly now. Lup reached up and ran her hand through Barry’s hair, moving to cup his cheek, stubble sharp against her palm.

Barry mimicked her action, pushing thick clumps of wet hair out of Lup’s face. He just stared, until he took a ragged breath and shoved his face into the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms tightly around her middle. Lup blinked once in surprise, and then folded her arms around him and pulled him flush to her body. She buried her face in his dark curls, smelling the scent of his favorite peppermint shampoo. The texture of it was overwhelming against her new, sensitive skin, but she held him like she had never held Barry Bluejeans before in her life. 

From where his face was hidden in her collarbone, Lup could feel him trembling, and she startled slightly when hot drops of liquid dripped onto her skin. She brought her free hand up and wove it into his hair, holding him closer and tighter to herself, stroking the back of his head gently.  

“You’re back,” he mumbled into her skin. “You came back, Lup.”

She tried to pull him closer to her, crinkling her nose when she couldn’t. “I always meant to come back, Bear. I’m never leaving you again.” He shook harder, and his tears started coming faster and faster. 

Fearing she had done something wrong, Lup froze, not even daring to stroke at his hair. “Babe. Bear, I’m here. I’m right here. I got you back, Bear.”

He pulled back as much as the arms wrapped around each other would allow, staring up at her with bloodshot eyes. “I really missed you, Lup,” he said, his voice raspier than normal. 

She smiled, and her voice wavered as she replied. “Gods, Bear. I thought about you every single day. I dreamed about you breaking me out of there and I hate to say it but that was the only thing keeping the Umbra Staff from consuming me completely.”

He shuddered in a breath, holding it before letting it go shakily out his nose. “Fuck, Lup. I’m sorry, I looked for you for this entire time, and I couldn’t find you. I couldn’t even remember you half the time.”

“Babe,” Lup whispered. “I’m not mad. Bear, you’ve got me now. I’ve got you, Bear.”

He laughed, this time, and he loosened his grip ever so slightly around her. “I’m glad you’re home, Lup.”

She grinned down at him, something mischievous flashing in her eyes, accentuated by her slit pupils thinning. “I’m going to smooch your fucking brains out, my dear.” 

And she did.

* * *

 

Later, Barry helped Lup down the foothills of the mountains, where they were able to summon their new magic, courtesy of the Raven Queen. Barry materialized his new scythe, the blade a shade of blue that matched his pants, and tore a hole in reality that led to their house.

Lup could see through the portal into their kitchen, where her brother was working diligently at something on the stovetop. He had his back turned to them, humming something that Lup couldn’t quite make out. Taako hadn’t noticed the sound of the scythe tearing through time and space. 

“Hey dingus!” Lup yelled as she stepped through the portal. “You better have some spell slots left!”

Taako dropped the metal spoon he had been holding. It clattered against the tile floor, and he whipped around to face her. “Holy shit, Lulu. Holy fucking shit.”

He rushed up to grab his sister, holding her just as tight as Barry had, if not closer. “My heart,” she mumbled. Taako held his sister like he was drowning and she was the only thing keeping him afloat. 

“I’m sorry I forgot you,” he said, making Lup squeeze him harder. 

“That’s not your fault, Ko.” 

She felt fingers weaving into her still damp hair, a third hand pressing gently on the small of her back, and Lup had never felt more loved. 

As suddenly as it had started, Taako wrenched himself away from her and Barry, turning back towards the stove. “I cannot burn dinner, Lup. Krav and D'jangus are coming over tonight. But after we eat,” he said, accentuating his words with a flourish with a wooden spoon, “We are going to make you feel right in that new body of yours.”

Lup sucked in a breath, the air thick with the scent of Taako’s cooking. Her knees started trembling again, and she cupped her hands over her mouth. Barry slung an arm around her, letting her lean on him. “I’m okay, Bear,” she said, the words muffled by her fingers. “Bear. Really, I’m okay. This is just a lot.”

His other hand wove into her hair again, his thumb stroking gently at the base of her spine. “Yeah, I know,” he mumbled. 

Taako looked over his shoulder at his sister, stealing the moment like he was afraid he’d never get to see her again. “Dinner’s not gonna be ready for another hour. So if you want to go reconnect or whatever, do it where cha’boy can’t see it. Please. I love you, Lup, and Barold, you’re the closest thing I’ve got to a brother, other than Mango. I don’t want to ask y’all to leave, but get out of my kitchen.”

Lup barked laughter. “Like I’m not the one who taught you to cook, Ko.” The words faded into a yawn, and she leaned more heavily into Barry’s side.

Barry turned Lup to face him. “Hey, let’s go take a nap. You’re back in a body, so you need sleep again. And food, and water. That sound alright?” A wave of dizziness struck her then, and Barry tightened his arms around her waist. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Let’s go upstairs, okay?”

She laughed weakly, letting Barry lead her up the stairs of their house. Surprisingly, she was okay with leaving Taako again. But this time, she knew that she would be able to come back to him. 

Lup stumbled on the stairs, not clearing a step and tripping on her own feet. Barry, the eternal love of her life, swept her into his arms bridal style without missing a beat. She wrapped her arms around his neck instinctively, her vision going blurry. 

“Will you be there when I wake up?” she asked, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you did.”

“Yeah, Lup. I’ll be there. I promise,” Barry said, his voice low, buzzing in his chest. The feeling of his solid presence against her was the last thing Lup was aware of before she fell asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday my dude.


End file.
